Role of phase information and eye pursuit in the detection of moving objects in noise.

As part of an ongoing study that uses objective image quality measures to optimize medical imaging x-ray fluoroscopy, we investigated two basic features of the detection of moving cylinders that mimic arteries, catheters, and guide wires. First, we compared detection with and without a phase cue consisting of a nearby alternating light and dark square. Depending on object size and velocity, phase cuing improved detection from 1% to 15% and gave an average of 6%, an effect much smaller than the 38% predicted from a Monte Carlo simulation of the ideal observer. Evidently, humans were limited in their ability to incorporate knowledge of the phase cue. Second, we evaluated the effect of eye pursuit of a fixation point that moved with the target. In general, motion at the highest velocity degraded (74%) and enhanced (68%) detection of small and large objects, respectively. With eye pursuit, both effects were substantially reduced in a manner consistent with a reduced retinal velocity. Our data compared favorably with a human observer model that included a spatiotemporal contrast sensitivity response and smooth-pursuit eye movements with a gain of 0.8. These mechanisms of perception are thought to be present in coronary artery x-ray fluoroscopy imaging, where phase information is available from the moving heart and where motion markers are available from x-ray opaque markers incorporated in thin catheters and guide wires.